School heads on Monday began the process of admitting students to Junior Secondary Schools (JSS), despite the government's failure to release the Kenya Primary School Education Assessment (KPSEA) exam results.
Confirming the information, a school head who spoke to Kenyans.co.ke, disclosed that a majority of schools had already begun the process of admitting the new JSS students, however, he decried low turnout.
The school head teacher further revealed that parents were not charged any fee while admitting their children to their various schools, noting the transition was a smooth one.
While addressing the reason for admitting students to JSS without the exam results, the teacher revealed all the students who sat for the exams were guaranteed direct transition.
“For those who did KPSEA, it's an automatic transition, no rules tied to it,” she noted.
“For existing pupils, they just transit to grade seven, for new pupils we ask for an assessment report, the number which is in the KNEC portal to confirm whether they did KPSEA."
Speaking to a parent who had just admitted a student to one of the schools in Nairobi, the parent revealed she was forced to part with thousands of shillings to get her child admitted.
According to the parent, she was made to pay Ksh3,500 for a locker which she noted was meant for two students, and Ksh7,000 for parents who wanted to secure individual lockers for their children.
In addition, new students being admitted to the school for the first time were made to pay Ksh12,000 to cater for the construction of classrooms.
JSS students had been scheduled to report to school on January 15 alongside Form One students.
CS Machogu, while releasing the Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education (KCSE) results last week revealed that KPSEA results would be released in two weeks.
On January 12, CS Machogu warned school heads against charging parents on account of expanding infrastructure to accommodate learners joining Grades 7 & 8.
The CS noted that the Ministry of Education had already credited Ksh7.6 billion to school accounts to facilitate the building of classes.
"The government plans to spend Ksh12.8 billion to facilitate the construction of 15,015 classrooms for JSS over the next one year," Machogu disclosed.
Machogu also urged school heads to ensure learners in grade 7 use the classrooms that were used by their predecessors.
